Page 28 of Playing for Keeps
Camy made a buzzing sound as if they were on a game show. “Wrong,” she snapped. “Try again and this time look at me.”
Rylan’s fingers still on the keyboard as she wondered how this was going to turn out. Del clearly didn’t want anyone to know they were sleeping together. And really, Rylan wasn’t sure she wanted to make a public spectacle of the event either. It was temporary. Clearly not one time as they’d previously planned, but neither of them were looking for anything more than good sex. And wow, were they getting that.
Ugghhh, she was not thinking that with Del’s sister sitting just a few feet away.
“Rylan Sophia Kent,” Camy said in a tone that meant she was definitely playing the we’re-best friends-so-stop-bullshitting-me card.
Rylan sighed and spared one look at Camy before falling back in her chair. She closed her eyes and said as quickly as she could, “I slept with Del. We didn’t plan for it to happen. It was sort of a fluke. Like really, on online mistake that went way too far and before we could stop it, we were having sex in the garage and then…again at my apartment last night…and this morning.”
Her voice had gone from nervous and jittery to disgraced and quiet in a matter of seconds. The following silence had her peeking one eye open to see if Camy had picked up the letter opener from the mug on her desk and was coming around the desk to stab her with it. But that wasn’t what she saw. Both eyes opened and Rylan sat up slowly in her chair. Camy was smiling.
“Well it’s about damn time,” she said with another shake of her head.
“What?” Rylan asked incredulously. “I told you we didn’t plan this. It was a mistake.”
“The best lessons are learned from mistakes,” Camy continued. “You’ve been in a sexual drought for far too long and Del, well he’s been in his own dark place since returning from D.C. So, this is good. It’s damn good.”
“I don’t understand how you can say that,” Rylan replied honestly and proceeded to tell Camy all the details of how she and Del came to be sex partners.
When Rylan was finished with the story, Camy laughed. And laughed.
“Girl, that is too good. It sounds like a movie with Tika Sumpter and Morris Chestnut playing the leads,” she said. “I can’t even imagine my brother chatting online and having phone sex!” Camy laughed some more.
“He’s the uptight one of us. The very serious one, always in control of every damn thing. I wish I could’ve seen the two of you.” Then she stopped and held up a hand. “Ah, no that may have been too much.”
“Ya think?” Rylan asked, still shocked at Camy’s reaction.
Was she really happy that her best friend was sleeping with her brother?
“Are you serious?” Rylan asked when Camy continued to chuckle. “I mean, this doesn’t bother you at all?”
“Bother me? Why should it? Because you’re my closest friend and I trust you with my life? Doesn’t it stand to reason that I would also trust you with my brother’s heart?” Camy asked.
Her words made sense, but it still didn’t sound right to Rylan.
“Hearts aren’t involved here,” she replied quickly because she wanted there to be no illusions as to what was going on.
Not on Camy’s part, and certainly not on her own.
“We’re just kickin’ it,” Rylan continued. “And we’re not even telling people because you know, it could end whenever.” The last was said with an inconsequential wave of her hand.
Camy’s laughing ceased, but her smile stayed in place. The girl-please-stop-playing smile.
“Okay, you may believe that right now because this is still new. But I know you and I know Del and neither of you are the “just kickin’ it” type. That’s why you’ve both remained single and emotional entanglement free for so long.”
“Camy, no. That’s really not how it is. I am not trying to hook Del. I’m just…just…” Rylan couldn’t think of the words.
“You’re just getting your thing off?” Camy asked and chuckled. “That’s cool. But when the hot and sweaty glow of great sex wears off—because honey you are absolutely glowing this morning, even dressed in those drab ass clothes. But when that wears off, you’re gonna find that hearts tend to do what they want, regardless of what the brain insists.”
“Not for me,” Rylan said sternly. “I’m not in this for any happy ever after. Fairy tales are definitely for you and Naomi. I’m the realistic one.”
“So realistic people don’t deserve love and happiness?”
Rylan shook her head. “Oh no. I’m realistic, not cynical. I’m certain I’ll get married at some point and I’ll have a family which will hopefully be happier than the one I was born into. But I don’t believe in some sweeping tale of love where the most unlikely people in the world realize they can’t live without each other and defy all the odds to be together. That’s just not me.”
Camy’s response had been more laughter. Until Rylan had shooed her out of her office. Her friend had left after giving Rylan a tight hug and saying, “I love you even though I swear you can be the blindest and most stubborn person in all the earth.”
Rylan accepted the hug and admitted her love for her friend, especially after hearing that Camy wasn’t angry about what she’d done with Del. That had relieved some of the stress about what was going on between the two of them. The rest—which included how Del had looked when she’d offered to drop him off at work and the words he’d said before getting out of her car—still had her puzzled. But Rylan pushed those thoughts out of her mind and decided to focus on work, because that was the one thing she could control right now. She could bury herself in the jobs they were being paid to do and nothing else. Because everything else in her life was a hot mess.
